Hydraulic System Dynamic Simulation on a Personal Computer

Current practice in hydraulic system simulation usually requires access to a mainframe computer, academic knowledge of hydraulic control theory, ability to define a mathematical model of the system, and programming experience in the simulation language of that mainframe computer. This paper describes the use of a program which is available on a personal computer. Included in the program is the hydraulic control theory and mathematical model construction. The system model diagram is graphically constructed using the hydraulic elements incorporated in the program. The diagram provides the vehicle to describe and connect these hydraulic elements to form the system model. This model is then numerically solved for the dynamic response. Results of the response can be interactively viewed in the form of plots and tabulated data. Since the equations are automatically generated and solved by the program, anyone with a basic knowledge of hydraulics can easily use it. The comprehensive numerical techniques with the advanced hydraulic theory provides a powerful tool for advanced hydraulic analysis. This capability combined with low cost hardware offers an attractive hydraulic system simulation tool.